Venezuelan think tank: US Caribbean operation failed to meet key goals.
From the analytical website Mision Verdad, what began as a multi-pronged offensive to overthrow the Venezuelan government and impose regime change in favor of its economic subordination has led to a crisis in Washington’s legitimacy and the strengthening of a regional and global resistance, while revealing criminal practices that threaten to destabilize the power structure in the United States.
The offensive and its components: military pressure, false narrative, extrajudicial executions
The strategy unfolded on three intertwined fronts, all based on the assumption of “national exceptionalism” and the constant incitement of an alleged “existential emergency.”
On the military front, tens of thousands of troops were deployed to the Caribbean before and after Operation Southern Spear (the largest deployment since the Cold War), and Operation Southern Spear was billed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsett as a “humanitarian mission.”
But the gap between the apparent narrative and the operational reality is profound: without any vetting process, no progressive warnings, or attempts to intercept, the US armed forces have carried out more than 20 airstrikes against suspected drug-trafficking vessels, attacks that have killed nearly 100 civilians (including Venezuelan, Colombian, and Trinidadian fishermen and crew) in just three months.
The lack of military courts, proportionality review, or accountability mechanisms turns each operation into an act of extrajudicial execution.
This pattern is not accidental; Rather, it is rooted in an institutional architecture that has made systematic impunity the norm since the US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For example, the September 2 attack, in which two survivors of the attack were targeted and eliminated in the water, was not an operational aberration but the embodiment of a conscious policy. Former military legal advisors (JAG) have revealed that orders such as “leave no survivors” were issued or approved by Hegsett, conduct classifiable as a war crime under Title 18, Section 2441 of the United States Code.
The Pentagon’s refusal to release the full video of the attack (despite the release of more than 20 edited clips) reinforces the hypothesis that we are not dealing with a tactical error but with a deliberate strategy of concealment, one in which unlawful violence is the primary means of enforcing geopolitical discipline.
Geopolitical Costs: Hemispheric Isolation and Multipolar Balance
Contrary to its stated goal, this escalation has not only isolated Venezuela but has also led to an unprecedented convergence in Latin America. Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, three actors with different political agendas and historically tense relations with Caracas, have made it clear that they oppose the military deployment.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva called it a threat to regional peace; Colombian President Gustavo Petro suspended intelligence cooperation with the United States and called the attacks on the ships “terrorism”; and the Mexican government called for an immediate end to any armed threats.
This regional triangle does not arise from ideological alignment, but rather from a shared understanding of a strategic risk: the US operation threatens Venezuelan sovereignty and undermines the principle of non-intervention; The principle that has been a pillar of South America’s security architecture since the Declaration of Santiago (1986) and the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
The consequences of the US actions go beyond the hemisphere. Russia and China have declared their support for Venezuela in the context of a structural conflict over the global order.
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian representative to the Security Council, spoke of “unprecedented pressure” and warned that any attack would be an “irreparable mistake, while Beijing stressed that Venezuela’s internal issues must be resolved without sanctions or interference.
This convergence is not a temporary one; it reflects the consolidation of a multipolar axis that offers financial, energy, and diplomatic alternatives to unilateral dependence on Washington.
In this context, the Caribbean offensive not only fails to isolate Venezuela but also accelerates its integration into value chains and alliances that erode US hegemony in the global South, a strategic paradox that highlights the blindness of US imperial planning.